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Any and all comments/feedback are welcome and appreciated!

Some things I mentioned in the e-mail:

A couple of notes/things I'm looking for feedback on: What I've come to call 'Snevan speak'-the Snevans have a rather strong accent/dialect that leads to a number of sounds, particularly vowel sounds, geting stretched out. As of now, I've written their dialogue phonetically, because I've found that when I read I don't read characters with their accents unless something reminds me of it. My alpha readers are at this time divided-one feels its fine, another finds their dialogue irritating (I am aware that in large doses it can be irritating, which is why I've attempted to limit their amount of dialogue both here and later in the story). Thoughts on that would be appreciated, so I can decide now whether to keep it as is, or simply describe their manner of speaking to the reader and letting it go from there.

Part of the chapter was rewritten at the last minute, so if it feels like it doesn't quite mesh with the rest, please mention it.

Brief Summary: Darkclaw and his new Felinaris allies arrive at Sneva to attempt to get them to join their war against the Galactic Alliance. They are surprised by what they see when they arrive.

Summaries of previous chapters:

Chapter 4: Nayasar is overworking herself, and Felivas demands that she take a mental health day.

Chapter 5: Darkclaw and the Troodons arrive at Selixan Station, a station left by the Saviors, created to rapidly build an army for the Troodons.

Chapter 6: Second Scion Dalcon the Bright joins a mission to find out why all contact was lost from an information storage station three weeks ago. What he finds troubles him.

Chapter 7: Three months have passed, and the Troodons have a fleet and army ready to begin the conquest. Darkclaw leads the fleet to conquer three small star systems which will serve as staging points for the primary offensive.

Chapter 8: Darkclaw is able to conquer the Reathan system, but failed in another matter. He decides to approach the Felinaris with an offer of alliance. He succeeds, but something unexpected happens, something that Darkclaw was not prepared for and did not wish for.

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Here's chapter 8.

As always, any and all feedback is appreciated.

Brief Summary: Darkclaw is able to conquer the Reathan system, but failed in another matter. He decides to approach the Felinaris with an offer of alliance. He succeeds, but something unexpected happens, something that Darkclaw was not prepared for and did not wish for.


Summaries of previous chapters:

Chapter 4: Nayasar is overworking herself, and Felivas demands that she take a mental health day.

Chapter 5: Darkclaw and the Troodons arrive at Selixan Station, a station left by the Saviors, created to rapidly build an army
 for the Troodons.

Chapter 6: Second Scion Dalcon the Bright joins a mission to find out why all contact was lost from an information storage station three weeks ago. What he finds troubles him.

Chapter 7: Three months have passed, and the Troodons have a fleet and army ready to begin the conquest. Darkclaw leads the fleet to conquer three small star systems which will serve as staging points for the primary offensive.

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Again, sorry for getting the chapter out so late.

As I mentioned in the email, most of the planet/system names are whatever I thought of just before sending otu the chapter, so they are all subject to change. And, if any technical aspects of things such as travel times or fleet sizes feel off, don't hesitate to mention it. I'm still trying to figure out what feels best while working with the plot.

And as always, any sort of feedback is useful and appreciated.

Brief Summary: Three months have passed, and the Troodons have a fleet and army ready to begin the conquest. Darkclaw leads the fleet to conquer three small star systems which will serve as staging points for the primary offensive.


Summaries of previous chapters: (there may have been a slight formatting error with the summaries in the email)


Chapter 3: The Troodons, before building their army, are ordered to raid an information station-essentially a giant library- on the edge of Galactic Alliance space to learn what they can about their eventual enemy. Darkclaw sends his subordinate Praetor Keeneye to lead the mission, and watches through a helmet feed. The station is captured without incident, and Darkclaw completes his mission. He relates this to the High Lord, who instructs him to set a course for a hidden station where they will build an army.

Chapter 4: Nayasar is overworking herself, and Felivas demands that she take a mental health day.

Chapter 5: Darkclaw and the Troodons arrive at Selixan Station, a station left by the Saviors, created to rapidly build an army for the Troodons.

Chapter 6: Second Scion Dalcon the Bright joins a mission to find out why all contact was lost from an information storage station three weeks ago. What he finds troubles him.

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As I said in the email, sorry for getting this out so late. This chapter introduces a new viewpoint- minor compared to the other two I've done so far-he will only have 2-3 chapters to himself, in addition to a few sections in chapters with multiple viewpoints.

This chapter was a bit hard for me to write-Dalcon's viewpoint did not come to me as easily as Darkclaw's and Nayasar's. Also, the first draft of this chapter was way too infodumpy, which is why I took an extra week to rewrite it. I think I fixed most of it, but if anything comes off as an infodump, don't hesitate to mention it.

And and all feedback/comments are greatly appreciated!


Brief Summary: Second Scion Dalcon the Bright joins a mission to find out why all contact was lost from an information storage station three weeks ago. What he finds troubles him.

Summaries of previous chapters:

Chapter 2: Introduces Grand Admiral Nayasar, the young supreme commander of the Felinaris military, who is also their heir to the throne. She waits with her subordinate and close friend Admiral Felivas for a formal meeting with her father, in which she will propose a plan to exact revenge on those responsible for an attack on the Felinaris homeworld that killed many. When her plan is not accepted, she storms out and Felivas tries to calm her down.

Chapter 3: The Troodons, before building their army, are ordered to raid an information station-essentially a giant library- on the edge of Galactic Alliance space to learn what they can about their eventual enemy. Darkclaw sends his subordinate Praetor Keeneye to lead the mission, and watches through a helmet feed. The station is captured without incident, and Darkclaw completes his mission. He relates this to the High Lord, who instructs him to set a course for a hidden station where they will build an army.

Chapter 4: Nayasar is overworking herself, and Felivas demands that she take a mental health day.

Chapter 5: Darkclaw and the Troodons arrive at Selixan Station, a station left by the Saviors, created to rapidly build an army for the Troodons.

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Hey all, here's chapter 5. In this chapter, Darkclaw and the Troodons arrive at Selixan Station, a station left by the Saviors, created to rapidly build an army for the Troodons.

And and all feedback/comments are useful and greatly appreciated! :)



Summaries of previous chapters:
 
Chapter 1: Executor Darkclaw and his species, the Troodons, awaken from millennia of hibernation. Their leader, the all-powerful High Lord, constructs a vessel for them and they leave their home world, to build an army and conquer any and all ‘inferior’ species.
 
Chapter 2: Introduces Grand Admiral Nayasar, the young supreme commander of the Felinaris military, who is also their heir to the throne. She waits with her subordinate and close friend Admiral Felivas for a formal meeting with her father, in which she will propose a plan to exact revenge on those responsible for an attack on the Felinaris homeworld that killed many. When her plan is not accepted, she storms out and Felivas tries to calm her down.
 
Chapter 3: The Troodons, before building their army, are ordered to raid an information station-essentially a giant library- on the edge of Galactic Alliance space to learn what they can about their eventual enemy. Darkclaw sends his subordinate Praetor Keeneye to lead the mission, and watches through a helmet feed. The station is captured without incident, and Darkclaw completes his mission. He relates this to the High Lord, who instructs him to set a course for a hidden station where they will build an army.
 
Chapter 4: Nayasar is overworking herself, and Felivas demands that she take a mental health day.

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As I mentioned in the email, I'm glad to finally be back to a point where I should be able to submit(and give feedback) regularly-chapter 5 is already ready for next week, and hopefully I will keep the pace up.

I'll repost here the note I put in the air about the description of the Felinaris:

One brief note: As was noted in comments on chapter 2 (and by my other readers) I didn’t do quite as good a job as I could have in describing the Felinaris as a species. As such, and since the reader would know how they look by this point, I am including a brief physical description of the species. (Which should also help those who have not read chapter 2).

Brief description of the Felinaris as a species: They are essentially humanoid cats, especially their heads, which are almost identical to that of a cat in shape, and they have a tail. Their hands are five-fingered and clawed. They are digitigrades (as are cats), and their leg shape is closer to that of the hind legs of cats than a human’s.


About this chapter on it's own; it's meant to be a fun, lighthearted chapter, both to advance the characters and to provide a break between  the necessarily dry, early Darkclaw chapters.

Any and all feedback is welcome!

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Reading Excuses / May 2- Skyhunter Commander- Earthmover Chapter 1
« on: May 02, 2011, 05:13:16 PM »
I don't have much more to add here that I didn't put in the email, except a quick apology for the length, which probably does nothing here...

I hope you enjoyed and I eagerly anticipate feedback! :)

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Writing Group / Writing Exercises
« on: April 05, 2011, 04:48:16 AM »
I was just wondering if anyone knew of any good writing exercises that would allow me to work on an aspect of writing while still writing something that would still be submittable to a fiction workshop class. (I need to hand in more pages, but I think too big for short fiction/don't want to spend time outlining a story that will end up rushed and probably bad.)

The only one I can think of as an example right now is the dialog one that Brandon Sanderson talked about on his Facebook a while back, (the dialog one, which Writing Excuses subsequently devoted two episodes to, and I am currently having fun doing now).

I'll take any suggestions, as long as it allows for some sort of cohesive narrative to be written in addition to whatever it's designed to help me practice.

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Chapter 3, where the plot starts to get moving.

As I mentioned in the email, any thoughts/ suggestions about chapter length + chapter length consistency would be appreciated, along with any other comments.

Thanks for the feedback.

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As I mentioned in the email, this is essentially the fourth draft of my novel, and I aim for it to be the first completed one. As of yet it's titleless(one thing I know I fail at), so if anyone has title suggestions I would be grateful (granted, without knowing the whole story it'd be hard, but I am getting tired of calling it 'story' or 'the Troodon story'.)

As an additional note, while it is draft 4, chapter 2 is new, and was not in any previous drafts. It was added to both introduce Nayasar earlier and to break up the early Darkclaw chapters, for reasons that may become evident after you've read the first chapter.

That said, I'll stop talking (typing) and see what comments you guys have.

Thanks

(Note: I apologize for forgetting to put the date in the email subject; I knew I forgot something.)

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